Third Industrial Revolution Global CEO Business Roundtable
Description
"I chair a group of more than 100 companies—many of whom are the main players in the renewable energy industry, the construction industry, urban planning and architecture, IT, and global logistics and transport—that comprise the Third Industrial Revolution Global CEO Business Roundtable. We use a similar organizational model to the one used in the film industry. Everyone has their own expertise. We come together to help political jurisdictions, the local business community and civil society create a Third Industrial Revolution narrative and game plan—analogous to a script—that can help them transition their economies into the new economic era.
The Third Industrial Revolution Global CEO Business Roundtable is the outgrowth of the dramatic changes that have taken place in the recent past. We’ve had two events in the last three years that signal the beginning of the endgame for the Industrial Revolution based on fossil fuels. The first one was July 2008 when oil hit $147 a barrel and the costs of all the goods and services across the global supply chain went through the roof, purchasing power plummeted, and the entire global economy ground to a halt. That was the great economic earthquake that signaled the beginning of the endgame for an Industrial Revolution based on fossil fuels. The financial collapse 60 days later was the aftershock.
We’ve hit peak globalization in how far we can actually globalize the economy based on elite fossil fuels. Every time we try to re-grow the economy at the same growth rate we were experiencing before July 2008, oil prices will rise and the prices of all other goods and services will climb as well because all the economic activity of our global economy depends on fossil fuels. We grow our food in petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides. Most of our construction materials and the vast majority of our pharmaceutical products are made of fossil fuels as well as our packaging materials and clothes. Our power, heat, light and transport are also reliant on fossil fuels. The price of virtually every good and service in today’s global economy is dependent on the price of oil. That is why we are likely looking at four-year cycles of growth and collapse. Each time we try to restart the engine by replenishing inventories, oil prices will climb back up, all the other prices for goods and services will spike along with the price of oil, and at around $150 a barrel, purchasing power will plunge and the economy will shut down. That’s exactly what is happening now as we head to a second collapse of the global economy." (http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2012/01/jeremy-rifkins-third-industrial.html)